(no subject)

[frelling_tralk]

10 episodes of Angel that show how it was more than Buffy redux”

Episodes listed are To Shanshu In L.A from season 1, Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been from season 2, Fredless, Birthday, Waiting In The Wings, AND Forgiving from season 3, Soulless from season 4, and finally Smile Time, A Hole In The World, and Not Fade Away from season 5.

To me that that list is seriously failing when it comes to season 2, what about episodes like Darla and Reunion?!? Home from season 4 also deserves a mention IMO, as well as You're Welcome from season 5. Fredless is a cute episode and all, but is it really comparable to the best episodes of the series?

The writer of the article talks about season 3 clearly being the overall best season, "As with Buffy, fans of Angel argue over which is the best season. Is it the second, which properly begins the larger story and gives it scope? The fifth, which wraps up that story with some hard but inspiring lessons? Or the third, which… okay, there shouldn’t really be any contest here. It’s the third. Most of Whedon’s top-shelf writers were heavily involved in season three (including Greenwalt, Minear, Noxon, and Fury), as the plotting became more complex and sophisticated, with the characters making crucial decisions that didn’t always pan out. Most importantly, the third season properly introduces Fred, who soon becomes the clever, sunny, quirky fan favourite

I don't remember season 3 being a particular fan favourite, but then I was thinking about it and I'm not sure that Angel does have universally (well more or less) agreed "best seasons" like Buffy does? Some people really love season 4 and the heavy serialisation there, while some absolutely hate it for what it does to Cordelia's character. Some really love the darker moments of season 3 with Holtz and Wesley, but then I saw a lot of dislike for "Soap Opera elements" at the time when season 3 was first airing, the Angel/Cordelia romance, dorky Angel, and the birth of Conner were by no means universally popular. With Buffy it's generally pretty easy to point to seasons 2, 3, and 5 as the clear favourites, but every Angel season seems to get a LOT of debate between love or hate from what I've seen.

To go off on a tangent for a moment, it seems like most of the hate for season 4 is because of Cordelia's character being lost that year, but I'd argue that already started happening in season 3. The first half of season 3 was great for portraying a more mature Cordelia, but the more they pushed the Angel/Cordelia romance, the more they started writing Cordelia as a Saint and Mother figure for Conner which just didn't work IMO and rang really false. Again at the time I remember a ton of controversy at how Cordelia was being written, especially all the fan jokes on the season 3 finale when she's carried off to the Heavens with twinkly lights, so it's interesting that season 4 takes all the blame for "ruining her character". Technically season 4 was not Cordelia any more, so there's actually more of a justification for the writing of her that year, in comparison to the saintly blonde that Double Or Nothing introduced to us. I remember speculation at the time was that it was down to David Greenwalt getting too carried away with seeing Cordelia as perfect, but I'm wondering now if it was more about fast-tracking Cordelia character arc to becoming a higher being, and thus wrapping up her journey? I remember at the end of season 4 that Joss said something to that effect of having nowhere else to take Cordelia's character at that point

It seemed that Joss allowed behind the scenes drama to affect the writing for Cordelia in quite negative ways unfortunately. I've noticed that posters on ohnotheydidnt get super-defensive if you imply that the treatment of Charisma was about anything other than Joss firing her for getting pregnant, but I would argue there were a lot of weird vibes in season 3 as well, there was definitely speculation at the time as to whether the Ascension was a way of writing Cordelia out. It's just a shame that Joss allowed whatever BTS drama there was to make its way onto the writing of the character

And this entry is starting to get really O/T, so maybe I should stop there :P But here's a poll anyway for favourite Angel season!

[Poll #2017986]

Comments

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

I have to admit that AtS just never really did it for me. I know it was "darker" and that should have made it a lock for me, but other than Angel (and later, Spike), I never really was invested in the rest of the characters, which made it a lot harder to stay interested. Especially since I've never been a Cordelia fan and she became central.


Gabrielle

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I feel the same way, I never cared about any of them the way that I cared about the characters on Buffy, I was the rare viewer that didn't care that much for Wesley's arc even. Intellectually I can appreciate that it was well-done, but I always found darker Wesley too cold to really be drawn in by his struggles Idk. I did like Cordelia more than you did though, but then the writing for her character ended up all over the place halfway through the series

[liliaeth]

I liked Wesley till s3, aka when he turned into broodboy jr. Before that, I loved him and his frienship with Gunn, but then they tried to make him all dark and dramatic and he started to bore me. I don't know why, usually I like storylines like that, but the way AD played it just didn't work for me.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Honestly yeah I feel the same way, I usually love the darker and morally ambiguous characters, but for me Wesley just seemed really dour and self-righteous. It didn't help that he then gave me creepy vibes in his relationship with Fred, and how he handled his 'father's' return by putting another bullet in him when he was already dead on the ground. He was kind of intense is I guess the nice way of putting it :P

[liliaeth]

It's weird, Dean on spn keeps getting dark as well, yet, the way Jensen plays it, he never loses his humanity, his kindness. Alexis on the other hand just didn't seem to be able to make Wesley go dark, while still making him feel human and relateable.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean, on paper it felt like they were going for a real Shakespearean tragedy with Wesley, but the way it was played just made Wesley come across to me as really self-pitying. I know the show did portray him as reaching out to Angel, but I couldn't help always seeing him as really cold and wrapped up in himself, almost like he was aware of the story that he was in and saw himself as this noble man who has been tragically wronged.

For me there was just never never any real warmth to his performance, he became such an insular character. Even his relationships with Lilah and Fred were all about Wesley and what he felt he deserved, whether he could be redeemed or not

[endeni]

Sorry, jumping in, but, oh what an interesting discussion! And I say it as a Wesley stan, I never really imagined seeing his character that way. To me, the way his character became more insulated in later seasons was also partially due to a sense of shame: of course, he felt wronged but he also felt obviously responsible for what happened to Connor and the rest of his makeshift family. He also felt unsure of his role, he was basically back to being an outsider, back at his starting point in season 1. Wesley always had a purpose, having been born and bred as a Watcher, but it was after he joined Angel's crew that he really came into his own and become able to fulfill that purpose. So, after the Connor accident he was also coping with a radical paradigm shift: who is he on his own and without Angel?
(Also, Wesley's relationship with Faith and Illyria are so fascinating to me!)

But then again I may be overly invested and reading too much stuff in the text... :D

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

To me, the way his character became more insulated in later seasons was also partially due to a sense of shame: of course, he felt wronged but he also felt obviously responsible for what happened to Connor and the rest of his makeshift family.

Probably my reading of Wesley is too harsh, but to me he just came across as more wrapped-up in himself and his friends not hearing his side of the side in that whole saga, rather than being horrified at the events he had set into motion that led to his friends baby ending up in a Hell dimension. Like that's actually really dark and horrific stuff that you could spend the rest of your life beating yourself up for, but instead "I had my throat cut and all my friends abandoned me" seemed to be the biggest thing that he took away from it all IMO. Even when he did reach out and say rescue Angel in Deep Down, I always felt like dramatically taking Angel back to the hotel and then disappearing was partly about him being self-righteous and proving a point to his former friends that see I'm not the jerk that you ungrateful people are all painting me as

I'm not saying that Wesley didn't regret what happened to Connor, but to me it always seemed like he was really focused on how his friends were the ones who had betrayed him by not understanding that he had good intentions really. We never saw much of him dwelling on the consequences of what he did, wondering how terrible Connor's childhood had been for example and if only I had done this differently etc, it came across as mostly being about how Wesley had been wronged by his friends

[endeni]

/Even when he did reach out and say rescue Angel in Deep Down, I always felt like dramatically taking Angel back to the hotel and then disappearing was partly about him being self-righteous and proving a point to his former friends that see I'm not the jerk that you ungrateful people are all painting me as/ - Really? I mean, I see how you could see it like that but to me it was like he was trying to put what things he could to right, paying his debt to Angel and all of that, even if Angel hates him now. He did what he had to but it still wasn't really enough, of course, and afterwards it wasn't like he could stay and chat, wasn't it?

/how his friends were the ones who had betrayed him by not understanding that he had good intentions really,/ - To me it seemed more like anger and hurt at the fact that his friends never even gave him the benefit of the doubt/stopped to talk to him/hear his version of the story. Of course he failed badly and he was aware and of how badly he has been played by fate, Sahjhan and Holtz and by his own stupidity and pride, always convinced of knowing what the best course of action was.
But it also strikes me as OOC for Cordy (but then season 3!Cordy feels all around very OOC to me) to be so wrapped up in her new relationship with Angel not to stop to talk with his old friend Wes so I tend to side with Wes on this one.

/we never saw much of him wondering how terrible Connor's childhood had been for example when Connor returns, it came across as being all about how Wesley had been wronged by his friends/ - Oh, yes, such a missed opportunity, what I wouldn't give for some more Connor and Wesley interaction! Instead all we got was Wes watching Angel and Connor over a railing with Lilah, Wes and Faith and Connor and Gunn hunting Angelus together, the sewers confrontation where Connor and the Jasmine loyalist are about to chop their head off before being called back by Jasmine and the episode Origin. Thank goodness for fandom. ;)

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

But it also strikes me as OOC for Cordy (but then season 3!Cordy feels all around very OOC to me) to be so wrapped up in her new relationship with Angel not to stop to talk with his old friend Wes so I tend to side with Wes on this one.

That's fair, Angel's reaction was understandable as that was his son, but it probably was a bit OOC for Fred, Gunn, and (especially) Cordelia to all immediately side with Angel and not even hear Wesley out. But then I felt like Fred was mostly only lashing out from hurt when she visits Wesley in the immediate aftermath of the kidnapping, she had earlier talked about her fears of what Connor was going through and related that to her own experiences in Pylea, so it was also a pretty personal thing for her. IMO she would have been won round by her friend Wesley again if he had taken steps towards seeking forgiveness once everyone had cooled down a bit.

Instead Wesley seemed to take those immediate responses and make them all about how terribly his friends are wronging him, and got really moody and wrapped up him himself. I'm not saying that he should have necessarily been throwing himself at their feet and talking about how sorry he was either, but the way that he did handle things was just a bit too "woe is me" for me personally, especially considering Angel's less than a year old baby was the one that had actually been sucked into Hell

[endeni]

Well, Fred did go to hospital to talk to Wes (if only to tell him not to come back) so I'm not really complaining. As you say, it was mostly an issue of everyone cooling down a bit. *nods* And Gunn had has issue with Wes ever since the whole love triangle thing with Fred started so that's not stretching my disbelief either. And poor Lorne got a nasty bump on his head for his troubles. So what leaves me perplexed is mostly Cordelia's behavior...
/I'm not saying that he should have necessarily been throwing himself at their feet and talking about how sorry he was either/ - Well, exactly, it's not like he had much alternatives, how do you go around asking forgiveness for something like that? O_o